In Dreams
by jellyheart84
Summary: 3 chapter Swan Queen fic : Regina falls under the sleeping curse to save Henry's life, and Emma vows to protect her from Storybrooke as Snow and the dwarves plot to bury her alive in a glass coffin. Previously submitted under former pen name.
1. Chapter 1

The second glass coffin was built much stronger than the first. The dwarves had built Snow's coffin like a jewelry box, more for display than protection. But the one they built for Regina was to be an eternal prison, an airless cell, a fortress of glass. Not that they ever expected Regina to wake up. But if she did somehow: no word, no magic, no breath would escape. Snow walked around the coffin appreciatively as the dwarves set it down in Regina's front hall. Snow had suggested they all move in to the house now that Regina, in her glass coffin, was going to be moved into her family crypt.

"It's Henry's house now, after all…and we could sure use the space."

Emma tried not to let the flicker of disgust register in her face. Her young mother flicked her raven black hair, Emma tried not to think of ravens picking at fresh blood on the road, on the side of the highway.

Rumple hadn't been seen for days, not since he had cast the spell that had incapacitated Henry the week before. As far as the Charmings could uncover, Rumple had been convinced Henry meant his undoing. Not wanting to kill Neal's child, not wanting to die himself, he had somehow gotten Henry to stab himself on his spindle. Emma remembered seeing Henry's small body in the hospital through the glass doors, her heart in her throat, frantically kissing his forehead, his cheeks. No response this time, only Henry's hearbeat growing slower on the monitor next to them.

"Somebody do something- SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING!" Emma shrieked. Her father and mother stood, arms at their sides, puzzled, tearful, already resigned. And then she heard Regina's voice ring out.

"There's a way to save him." Only Regina looked as wild as Emma felt. "You already broke the curse once you can't do it again. But I can use magic."

"At what price?" Snow sneered.

"I'll pay it." Emma kept her eyes locked with Regina's, the mutual love for Henry binding them in a common, focused panic. "You know I will. Just tell me what we do."

"It's not you that will have to pay the price." Regina sat beside Emma and laced her fingers through their son's much smaller ones.

"Goodnight, my baby boy." She whispered to Henry, as a purple smoke seemed to lift out of the young boy's body in a cloud of magic. Emma watched, horror stricken as the dark particles were drawn into Regina's sparkling black eyes. Regina's rigid shoulders dropped, her head fell back exposing her long white throat. Her perfect red mouth went slack and she fell across Emma's lap, in a sleep as deep as death.

Henry blinked and pushed himself into a sitting position,. "You saved me!" he smiled at Emma.

"No- she did." Emma looked at the woman in her lap, suddenly transformed from the Evil Queen to a small, girlish figure, her black hair fallen over her face, her expression so peaceful and untroubled, and felt another wave of panic wash over her. Snow and Charming were embracing Henry, laughing with joy.

"It's over." Snow embraced Charming. "This is the happy ending we've been waiting for."

Emma started shaking her head silently, but was unable to draw her attention from the figure in her lap. She swept the hair from Regina's cheek, and gathered Regina up in her arms, looking with anguish at Henry, who was already choking on a sob.

"Wha-mom- my mom-"

Charming pulled Henry away, and Snow shot a glance at Dr. Whale, who drew closer to Emma, kneeling to whisper, mere inches from Regina's unconscious form.

"This could be our chance." Whale said under his breath, glancing between Snow and Emma. "We could put enough morphine in her that she…it would be painless. Quite humane. And we would never have to worry about the curse ever breaking."

"Are you out of your mind?" Emma stood, still holding Regina in her arms, like a sleeping child. Regina's head fell against Emma's chest, and she caught the smell of perfume and freshly washed hair. The thought of Regina putting on perfume every day when no one stood close enough to her to smell it made Emma's fingers clench around the delicate frame in her arms.

"Her true love died a long time ago." Snow said to Dr Whale. "There's no chance of it breaking anyway."

"What?" Emma snapped. "What are you talking about?"

"This is an unprecedented opportunity." Dr. Whale's voice rose to a sputtering hiss. "She is a threat to everyone in this town and before we had no chance of getting her at a disadvantage. We should just end this now. "

"We're not murdering Regina, you sick son of a bitch." Emma growled, and pushed past Dr. Whale, shoving him with her shoulder as she moved past him hard enough to knock him to the hospital bed. Snow raced out behind her daughter, her eyebrows pulled together, her voice shrill.

"Emma- Emma wait-"

"We're not killing her- it's so- it's so incredibly wrong. Not after what she did for Henry. I won't-" Emma couldn't understand why her throat was constricting. Tears welled up in her eyes.

"Okay. No one is going to kill Regina. But what are we supposed to do with her?"

The town meeting took two nights, the arguing went on so long. Or so Emma heard, she refused to attend. She holed up in a room at Granny's, pulling a chair across from where Regina lay, on top of the bed quilt, still in the tailored black trench coat and silk dress she had worn to the hospital. Emma had another chair wedged under the bolted door handle to prevent anyone from forcing the door in, and strode from time to time to the window, peering through the drawn blinds for the first sign of a mob. She'd taught Henry a little knock for when he wanted to come in and hold her close and cry over Regina. He was full of ways to save Regina, Operation Cobra back in full effect.

"We can get Rumple and make a deal- we can find August, he'll know what to do- or maybe…"

His frantic planning always ended with him crying too hard, guilty tears cascading down his face, and Emma calling Ruby from the diner to walk him home. Emma was terrified that if she left the sleeping Regina for a moment, someone would steal in. Stab Regina. Take her away. Wreak some terrible mischief on the woman no one would bother to revenge. Maybe it was the sleeplessness, but Emma continually smelled that first breath of perfume that had wafted from Regina, and now-did she only imagine it?- its sweet, intoxicating tones filled the room, as a bouquet of flowers sends its smell more and more powerfully, more beautifully, as it wilts away.

+++

"They've voted to seal her in a glass coffin. Kharma's a bitch, right? It's what she wanted for Snow. Then they'll seal that up in her family crypt, with all her creepy hearts." Ruby watched Regina warily as she spoke, sidling around the as if it were a coiled cobra, and not a sleeping woman, laying on the covers. "The only thing is it might take the dwarves a while to make the coffin. They're talking about mixing in fairy dust and enchanting it so it's unbreakable. Which, you know, great, but it could take a couple weeks…Are you going to stay with her here or…?"

"I'll take her back to her house." Emma's voice was dull, hollows under her eyes. "Henry has the latchkey somewhere. I'll make sure she stays safe until she can be sealed away from them." Emma stared down at her worst enemy. And the mother of her son. And a friendless woman, not much older than herself, whose long lashes hadn't so much as fluttered in three days. Emma slid her arms under Regina's shoulders and knees and lifted her from the bed.

Faces stared out from windows, people stopped walking on the sidewalk to openly gawk at the golden-headed Saviour, striding down the street, her face absolutely grim, the Evil Queen held aloft in her arms. She walked the double yellow line in the center of the main street of Storybrooke, with slow unhurried steps, careful not to jostle Regina. Regina's dark head was turned into Emma's shoulder confidingly, and trailing behind them was Henry, his pinched, swollen face more sad than tears could make it. Emma locked eyes with everyone as she passed, daring them to stop her. Her fingers tightened and she whispered, in a daze, "I'm so sorry Regina."

_No, it's alright…_

The words, in Regina's voice, swam through Emma's head. "Holy crap!" Emma almost stumbled, looking down at the heart shaped face in its cloud of black hair just below her own. Regina was just as asleep as before.

_I can hear you, Miss Swan…_

Emma kept walking, all the blood draining from her face, her heart racing. "You can hear things?"

_Just you…_the tone was almost annoyed. The voice sounded fainter, as though coming from a great distance.

"Oh my God, I'm going crazy." Emma groaned. "I've finally snapped."

_I think it's the magic in me that lets me feel the magic in you, talk with it…converse with it…And I'm pretty sure the day you snapped was the day you took a chainsaw to my apple tree._

To be Continued….


	2. Chapter 2

Emma lay Regina on the grand four-poster on the second floor of the house and quickly shut the door, and was unable to resist the impulse of straightening the collar of Regina's tailored jacket.

_Are you there?_

"I'm here."

_I'm going in and out- sometimes I'm in a fiery room and then sometimes it's like dreaming and then sometimes I'm right here, right here with you…I can hear your heart, and your breath and…and then it all changes and I'm somewhere else-_

"Well, I guess now you know what you've been subjecting people to all these years."

There was no reply from Regina, her face its usual beautiful blank.

_I've never been so scared…. I've never been so powerless. _

Emma sat on the edge of the bed and took Regina's hand in hers. Suddenly, in her mind, she saw a scene, as blurred and undefined as a distant memory. She saw Regina, a younger Regina darting across a field on a horse. Was this what Regina was dreaming? The vision shifted, Regina was chasing a runaway horse with a little girl clutching at its back, a girl who looked like a bundle of white lace skirts, a screaming girl. Regina grabbed the child, but the creature that turned to face her was no human, its face a skull's face, laughing maniacally, small bony hands suddenly clutching, snapping dry bone against dry bone to pinch at Regina's face, her eyes, her heart. Regina, fighting to free herself fell from the horse, and hit the wet black mud underfoot. She writhed there, the black mud sucking her down, twisting out of it, dark purple clouds snaking around her. She moaned, pulling and then sinking, then allowing the mud to creep across her. It fanned out across her body in snaking drips, wrapping around her wrists. It poured into her eyes, across her lips, it wrapped around her and her moans became laughter: triumphant, hysterical, empty laughs. An older, a wiser Regina rose from a lake of black in a dress of purple lace, her gown glittering with jewels as black as her eyes.

"What the hell was that?" Emma snatched her hand away.

But there was no response.

* * *

Emma strode through the library of Regina's house, looking at the wall of books Regina kept. The spines were all cracked, as though they had been read and re-read many times. She pulled the one that looked the most worn and took it with her up the dark stairs to read aloud in the stillness of Regina's bedroom.

_Where were you?- I called out and you weren't there last night-_

"I ran over to Granny's for some coffee and food. I was starved." Emma pulled of her Jacket and sat at the foot of the bed, stretching her legs out across from her.

_You could have just made something in the kitchen. I keep a well-stocked fridge. And there should be a homemade lasagna in the freezer._

"That's your food. I don't want to scavenge your things. "

_Yet you have no qualms about putting your dirty shoes on my bed, Miss Swan?_

Emma chuckled and shucked off her tall boots. "Do you want me to keep reading that poetry book?"

_Talk to me a little bit longer? Maybe drop a hint about what they're going to do with me?_

Emma sighed. The dwarves had molded the panes of magical glass yesterday. Tonight they'd work through the wee hours soldering the panes together.

"You're not going to like it." No response. "Regina?"

Emma braced herself and reached out for Regina's hand- it was hot to her touch. The fiery room. Emma grabbed Regina's hand and held it fast, her heart thundering in her chest.

"I'm here, okay? I'm here." Regina's hand burned in both of hers. Emma reached frantically for the e.e. Cummings poetry book, whose words seemed to keep Regina calm when she got too scared and frantic, and started reading in the calmest voice she could manage:

"it may not always be so; and i say  
that if your lips, which I have loved, should touch  
another's, and your dear strong fingers clutch  
his heart, as mine in time not far away;  
if on another's face your sweet hair lay  
in such silence as I know, or such…"

Regina's hand, amazingly, was starting to cool in Emma's, and Emma found herself glancing from the page to Regina's face, losing her place and wishing desperately that somehow that she could make those eyelashes flicker.

"if this should be, I say if this should be-  
you of my heart, send me a little word;  
that I may go unto him, and take his hands,  
saying Accept all happiness from me.  
Then shall I turn my face and hear one bird  
sing terribly afar in the lost lands…"

Regina's hand was no longer hot, now it was that bloodless temperature it turned to let Emma know Regina's spirit had left the fiery room and was about to plunge into one of her twisted nightmare dreams. Emma knew from experience these were horrifying, but could not leave Regina to sink into one alone.

* * *

_When he was a baby, he used to snort when he laughed. I mean, I'm glad he grew out of it but I sort of miss it sometimes._

"You know, he really doesn't need a TV in his room. Only spoiled kids have TVs in their room."

_I'm sure compared to the backseat of a VW bug and a stolen shower in a LaQuinta it seems lavish, but believe me it's the norm these days._

"I should have never told you about Neal." Emma groaned, not even fighting her laughter. The boy talking had happened around midnight, and it's closing in on two AM.

_Anyway, he may have a TV in his room, but he also has a microscope._

"TV, microscope, whatever, they're not good for him. He needs to get out more. Scrape some knees. Climb a tree. Take some risks."

_Please…Please don't ever let him get hurt._

Emily's smile drops, she's deathly serious when she answers. "Never. You know I'll keep him safe no matter what."

_I know._

* * *

Early morning. Emma had woken up curled up beside Regina and staggered into Regina's large, gleaming white master bath to take a shower. Now she sat again at the foot of the bed, bundled into a terry robe Regina had told her was in her large closet, toweling her damp blonde hair, listening hard for Regina's voice. It was growing fainter, Regina's dreams were growing more terrifying. Her stays in the burning room were growing longer.

_What's all that sniffing you're doing, Emma?_

She's taken to calling her Emma. "I like your shampoo. The way it smells." Emma said absently. "I used some in my shower." She had cupped it close to her face and it had called Regina's black eyes immediately to mind, the sparkling laughing eyes she will never see again. Using it made her feel as though she had wrapped herself in some secret of the Queen's.

_When I was a princess, I had four serving women who would comb out my hair every morning. They'd wash it in fine oils out of a golden bottle and dry it before the fire. And in the evening they would comb it out again and braid it before I slept._

"Sounds like a party."

_Did you always have hair as ridiculously long as you do now, Emma?_

"How dare you. My hair is gorgeous….when I was a foster kid I had really short hair. We're talking crew cuts and bowl cuts right up until high school so no one had to bother with my tangles."

_Is that why you grow it now? Because you're proud that you can take care of yourself…_

Regina's conversations, of late, had grown a little more like sleep-talking. She seemed to say things that she was thinking without much filter, and Emma stopped moving the towel around her head to catch her words.

_I never had a mother either, really... That's why I wanted to be one so bad. I took having a mother away from you and you gave me the chance to be a mom…and I'm so sorry Emma. Emma, if I had known…_

The silence in the room is deafening for a moment. Emma listens so hard she can hear her pulse in her ears, clasping the lifeless hand but still no response.

Then suddenly: A vision, shared in their minds, the nightmare: a man in a stable, a dead man, but staggering horribly around. A man with glassy eyes, screaming soundlessly. His skin is so thin you can see the outline of his eye sockets and the veins throbbing over them. He falls in a heap of dust and the dust clears on the checkered floor of a large hall, a remote and antique place. An old man with Snow's brow but jaundiced eyes and a stern, humorless mouth is sitting beside Regina. They are on golden thrones, but the thrones are jagged like branches, they grow like thorns around Regina's arms, and Regina cannot say a word. The King is clenching Regina's hand with a white-knuckled grasp the way you'd hold a dog's leash if it misbehaved. And then the room shifts, and the King and Queen stand at a dizzying height. Regina holds a bundled up swaddling cloth on a balcony over a horde of cheering subjects, she looks down for the baby's face but there is none, she peels away layer after layer of satin swaddling until it's all blown away in the wind like birds, her hands empty.

* * *

"I just don't know if sealing her away in a tomb is really any different than murder. She's still alive. We can just leave her where she is. How can she hurt anyone?" Emma is wolfing down lasagna at the kitchen counter on one of her rare trips downstairs. Even half frozen (Emma is not even good at microwaving things) it's delicious.

David crosses his arms. "Look, no one wants to hurt Regina but as for helping her? That's out of the question. If she could put you, or your mother or me out of the way for good, she wouldn't hesitate for an instant."

"But she wouldn't be able to because we'd stand together. She has no one on her side! She has no one to fight for her!"

"Except you, it seems." David sat heavily in a chair, his hand casually reaching up to caress the Sheriff badge he still hasn't returned to Emma. "I don't understand why you feel you need to stand guard over her like this. The dwarves are putting her in the coffin tomorrow and taking her to her crypt, and I'm half wondering if you're going to follow her there too."

"Snow stayed by your side the entire 28 years Storybrooke was cursed when you were in a coma."

"That's different. We were in love. We had a child together."

Emma bit her lip.

"Please don't make me take Henry to visit his mom in a crypt for the rest of his life." She manages at last.

"He doesn't have to visit her." David says simply, and looks stunned when his daughter slams her fist into a wall before stalking out of the room.

* * *

Regina is burning. She's laying there as still and quiet as a stone, but Emma knows, because she's holding her hand, and burning along with her. The dwarves downstairs are polishing the coffin for the big funeral procession through town tomorrow. It's sort of Storybrooke's first official holiday, more like a royal wedding than a royal funeral. They're marrying Regina to her grave.

And then like a fever the heat in her small hand breaks, and Emma sees a vision, holding Regina's fingers, and it's of her, Emma. It's her walking through the first sunlight Storybrooke ever felt, in her white tank, making Henry laugh. It's her, Emma, suddenly caught in Graham's arms, and Regina contracting in pain, reacting in pure rage, and her fiery eyes biting back at Regina. Emma looks at the deathly pale face on the pillow, the heart shaped lips, and dashes tears out of her eyes. She kneels on the side of the bed and cups Regina's heart shaped face with her hands, tears sliding down her cheeks, presses her lips to her Queen's.

Finale to follow…


	3. Chapter 3

Like black butterflies, Regina's lashes fluttered open. Breath pulled against Emma's lips, and her hands went weakly up and touched Emma's face. Those black, glittering eyes faced Emma again, that fiery spirit returned with her smile. The hidden flowers in her perfume burst into blossom and the spring sunlight filled the room.

"You figured it out…" she said dreamily, and the sound of her sardonic voice filling the room and not Emma's mind released the weight from Emma's chest. She tilted her face up and Emma kissed her again, not reverently now but with a passionate, hungry movement, clasping her up in her arms and hugging the Queen to her chest as though trying desperately to reassure herself that she was real. And Regina held her back, the arms winding around her neck, her finger flitting delicately through the tangle of blonde hair and deftly untangling it. "Can I take care of you, now?" Regina murmured. "Like the way you've taken care of me?"

"Are you okay? How do you feel?"

"I'm okay, I-." Regina collapsed into Emma and her bright eyes flitted from her lap to Emma's face with an almost shy motion. "I just might be a little…weak." Regina's voice faltered. Emma could tell what it cost her to admit this to her, and what it meant that she could trust her with this.

A rapping at the door. Ruby's voice booming on the other side. "Emma! I need in there real quick. It's just me."

Emma looked at Regina, willing her not to fly into one of her tempestuous rages. "We can't let them know yet-" hurt passed over Regina's face momentarily but she nodded and composed herself on the bed as she had been before. Emma opened the door, trying to remember how to make her face look weary with her heart jumping in her chest and every possible nerve in her body exploding like fireworks: she loves me, she loves me, she's my true love. I am her true love. Me.

Ruby came in with a bundle of red satin in her arms. "Whoa, you look better." Emma shrugged. "Thanks."

"Have you seen the dwarves' glass coffin yet?" Ruby's eyes widened and she let out a low whistle. "It's amazing. And the Blue Fairy says no magic can get in and no magic can get out.."

"This isn't a great time Ruby- "

"Well I'm actually here on an errand, so before I go: your mom was down cleaning out the crypt, making space for the coffin and she found some of Regina's old dresses. We thought we should lay her to rest in state. She is still the Queen, after all. I can help change her with you later but they want to bury her at dusk so-"

"I can handle it." Emma said, snatching the bundle from Red. "I'll be right down, okay?" she hustled Ruby out the door, already sensing Regina's inability to lay still a moment longer. The door had barely closed before Regina had sat up and flung herself out of bed, standing with her fists clenched.

"They were going to _bury me alive_ in my family's crypt?! I'm going over there right now and burying them -"

"Regina please-"

"For your sake, I won't hurt Snow, Emma. But those damn dwarves need a lesson."

Regina made a motion with her hands, and a puff of violet smoke half-heartedly appeared between them and then petered out. She turned pale and sunk to the bed, turning to look up at Emma, her chin slightly trembling, and stared down at her hands. She swallowed hard, sat up straight, and made a motion again: nothing. She seemed vaguely more pale after the effort, as though it was costing her considerable strength.

"Listen to me." Emma kneeled at her side, taking Regina's hands in hers. "There's a way we can do this Regina, we can get out of here with Henry, and without hurting anyone, and without getting YOU hurt…" she shyly touched Regina's hair, and Regina's eyes filled again with tears. "…and leave behind all this drama and just be together. Do you want that?" she felt a pang of fear twist inside her.

"Of course I want that." Regina's fingers wound through hers. "You've seen my dreams, haven't you? All the good ones are of you."

Emma couldn't keep from kissing Regina softly on the lips, amazed again the way Regina tilted forward to meet her, the small miracle of the heat and sparkle that warmed her as soon as their faces got close, the feeling of abandon and terror she could only compare to the moment a rollercoaster teeters at the top of a curve and then plummets wildly, recklessly down.  
"If you just pretend to be sleeping a little bit longer. We can go through with this whole funeral procession they've got planned-"

Regina laughed silently, tears edging her thick lashes, looking dismally toward the window. A cloud cover had turned its panes the color of milk. "You want me to be shut up in a glass coffin that no magic can break out of and no magic can break into? And how exactly are you going to get me out?"

"I'll come back at night with Henry and the car. I'll get it open and we will get out of here. We'll start a new life in a normal town."

"How will you get me out if no magic can break in?"

"True love can break any curse, right?"

Regina sneered. "And how do I know you'll come back for me?" Emma stood, clenched her fists, and then kicked a chair by the bed clear across the room.

"What the hell-"

"Damn it, Regina, you're so damn- you drive me crazy, you know that? I don't know how else to prove to you what this is. I mean, I know _you're_ crazy and full of some seriously dark stuff and I know things have happened to you to really screw with your head- but if you can't tell by now that I cannot, I _will not_ live without you."

Regina stood up, tottering on her slender legs, her hands gently clasped over her chest, and Emma sank to her knees in front of her. "What do I have to do?" Emma sighed, anger and despair fighting in her face. "Tell me and I'll do it. You want me to get a sword and carry you out of here and take out anyone who gets in our way? I'll do it."

"Dress me for my 'funeral'." Regina whispered, and slid a finger to the first of the buttons that ran down her black blouse.

* * *

The sun was setting by the time Emma reluctantly agreed to let Regina finally climb into her red gown. Emma kissed the bare skin of Regina's back each time she fastened one of the long line of buttons that ran up the back.

"It'll just be a few hours. I'll pack up your things and handle Henry, we'll park the car by the cemetery. Once everyone's asleep-"

"Remember to pack his toothbrush and toothpaste." Regina murmured after a quick intake of breath as Emma kissed right between her shoulderblades.

* * *

Emma carried Regina, who lay still and unblinking, in her arms down the tall staircase. It was impossible for Regina to look quite as lifeless as she had, her red-painted lips wore an undeniable smirk. She would never see her face the same way again after the expressions she had seen pass over it during their stolen afternoon, the vulnerability, the thick lust, the girlish laughter.

A throng of Storybrooke locals filled the foyer, all holding torches, although the red light of dusk fell through the door and touched the glass coffin that lay on the ground, making its stark modern panes take on brilliant jewel tones and throwing a patch of rainbow color above them, across the high vaulted ceiling. It truly was flawlessly made except…Emma looked at the lid, two golden lines crossed in an x. "Is that a crack?" she looked at Dreamy, who stood cap in hand at the head of the glass coffin.

"No, that's the really brilliant part, the Blue Fairy had us work two of your hairs into the lid so no magic can open it, not even true love."

"That's not possible."

Emma felt Regina stiffen in her arms, but her eyes stayed shut. She could feel Regina's heart rate escalate.

"Henry-" Emma looked around the room, unbalanced, stepping back. "I'm going to let Henry say goodbye to Regina- "

David stepped forward and took Regina from Emma's arms. Regina's eyes snapped open and she made a noise of protest. The crowd stepped back for a moment, a hiss going through the crowd.

"She's awake- The Evil Queen is awake-"

Regina slid to her feet, shooting wild, furious glances at the room. Purple lightning crackled at the fingertips. Clearly their afternoon had…recharged her.

"Sorry Regina dear, but you're going in that coffin." Came a silky laugh, and Rumple walked forward from the crowd, cane in hand, looking lazily confident. Regina took a step back, her eyelashes flickering a little. She still wasn't very strong, Emma knew. The circle of torches was growing closer, tighter around them. Emma could see Regina wince at the sound of the flames.

"You'd let him back into town after what he did to Henry?" Regina snapped at Snow, who cowered behind David. "Are you out of your mind?"

"He's family." Snow whispered. "We're working it out."

Regina laughed bitterly, raising her hands, hiding her weakness behind a layer of bravado that only Emma could see through. "I'm not going in that damned coffin, Rumple-"

"No. No she's not." the last part of Emma's voice was oddly cut off by a sound like a sword being unsheathed. It was the bone-chilling scrape glass lid being slid into place, Emma's face set into a stern expression below it.

"Emma, NO-" David screamed, banging on the lid. "Emma, what are you doing?! Are you out of your mind?!"

Regina stood frozen. "No." she shook her head, her face clouding with rage. "No!"

With all her strength she blasted the coffin- purple lighting filled the small room, the whoosh of it setting out the torches around them, the Storybrooke locals fleeing from the dark magic Regina fired at the coffin, trying to break it. Regina rushed at it then, her red skirt flaring out around her, Snow and Ruby and Henry watching in dumbfounded amazement as she hammered at the coffin lid with her small fists, screaming like a wild woman. Snow, herself frantic, felt her heart twist looking at Regina prone over the coffin, frantically but ineffectually hammering the unyielding lid.

"She…Emma woke Regina up?" Snow murmured, her voice soft, wondering.

"Of course she did!" cried Henry. No one knew how to approach the dangerous woman staring down into the coffin, her anger and despair filling the room with a crackling, magical electricity, a supernatural wind stirring around the Charmings and Henry, who alone stayed to watch the Queen drop her guard and sob over the coffin of her knight.

"Emma…" Regina sobbed frantically. "What do I do?!"

Emma lifted a hand from inside the coffin and pressed it against the underside of the lid. Regina placed hers on top of it.

"You'll find a way." Emma said, her words muffled from inside her prison. "I know you'll find a way. If not…" she put up her other hand and smiled, the glass distorting her face. "Then I'll see you in my dreams."

Regina lay down on the lid of the coffin and shut her eyes tight, all her rage building behind her face and then melting away. Then one graceful hand rose aloft and with one imperious gesture, coffin and Queen disappeared, in a puff of purple smoke, from the room.

* * *

Henry sat straight up in bed. It was still dark. His heart beat wildly in his chest. He knew better than to cry, he knew better than to scream. He went to the window and stared out into the night. It had been the same dream for the past three nights, ever since that horrifying moment when he had seen both of his mothers vanish into thin air.

The same image, the dark misty woods of another, far off land, a land where strange, unknown magic still breathed. The smell of a familiar perfume, as familiar to him as lullabies and kisses goodnight still lingered in the air.  
And at the base of the tall trees, an empty glass coffin, its lid laying pushed to one side, and their voices still ringing in his ears.

_We're coming for you Henry-We miss you, kiddo-We'll be back soon-_

The End.


End file.
